I'm trying to delete a directory without rebooting but am unable to do
so. I used Process Explorer by Sysinternals to figure out what was
using it and it said it was being used by explorer.exe - that that
directory and another directory within it were being used.

Only problem is... I don't have any Explorer windows open that point
to these directories!

I can always crash explorer.exe and restart it with the Task Manager,
but I shouldn't have to do that. Is there any way to get a more
detailed explanation of what's using the folder other than just
"explorer.exe"?

explorer is the desktop, perhaps some image files or the like is what
the problem is?

yawnmoth wrote:
> I'm trying to delete a directory without rebooting but am unable to do
> so. I used Process Explorer by Sysinternals to figure out what was
> using it and it said it was being used by explorer.exe - that that
> directory and another directory within it were being used.
>
> Only problem is... I don't have any Explorer windows open that point
> to these directories!
>
> I can always crash explorer.exe and restart it with the Task Manager,
> but I shouldn't have to do that. Is there any way to get a more
> detailed explanation of what's using the folder other than just
> "explorer.exe"?

Bob I wrote:
> explorer is the desktop, perhaps some image files or the like is what
> the problem is?
>
> yawnmoth wrote:
>> I'm trying to delete a directory without rebooting but am unable to do
>> so. I used Process Explorer by Sysinternals to figure out what was
>> using it and it said it was being used by explorer.exe - that that
>> directory and another directory within it were being used.
>>
>> Only problem is... I don't have any Explorer windows open that point
>> to these directories!
>>
>> I can always crash explorer.exe and restart it with the Task Manager,
>> but I shouldn't have to do that. Is there any way to get a more
>> detailed explanation of what's using the folder other than just
>> "explorer.exe"?
>

Bob I wrote:
> explorer is the desktop, perhaps some image files or the like is what
> the problem is?
>
> yawnmoth wrote:
>> I'm trying to delete a directory without rebooting but am unable to do
>> so. I used Process Explorer by Sysinternals to figure out what was
>> using it and it said it was being used by explorer.exe - that that
>> directory and another directory within it were being used.
>>
>> Only problem is... I don't have any Explorer windows open that point
>> to these directories!
>>
>> I can always crash explorer.exe and restart it with the Task Manager,
>> but I shouldn't have to do that. Is there any way to get a more
>> detailed explanation of what's using the folder other than just
>> "explorer.exe"?
>
Recently I've had issues with deleting photos with the same message.
I'm in windows explorer doing it but not using the photo. And I'm not
viewing the photo. I'm holding the shift key and hitting delete and
getting this error. But a right-click and delete does not. I'm not
100% sure that there is not a bug floating around in windows. I wonder
if the details on the side bar in windows is not causing the file to
appear to be in use. It happens on both PC.s

Granted in my case I'm trying to delete a file that I'm looking at in
explorer. You don't say how you are deleting the folder. Are you
running a program or command line?